


Believe Me When I Say You Have It All

by HelloAmHere



Series: The Woods are Lovely, Dark and Deep [2]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Found Families, Full Shift Werewolves, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining, does it count as, if it's kind of obsessing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-02-19
Packaged: 2019-03-21 01:37:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13730358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelloAmHere/pseuds/HelloAmHere
Summary: Harry had never faced anything in this forest that had actually succeeded in scaring him. Louis was no exception.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This piece is the second in a series of interlocking short stories (I'm planning four total!), with You're Never Alone... being the first. They're sequential, but overlapping, so they'll tell a few of the same scenes from multiple POV. Best read together, if you like! 
> 
> Feel free to hit me up [on my tumblr](https://helloamhere.tumblr.com/) re: fic, writing, etc! [Fic post for this story](https://helloamhere.tumblr.com/post/171062527493/believe-me-when-i-say-you-have-it-all-chapter-1)

Harry fell in love the first moment he saw Louis Tomlinson, holding an ancient bag with broken handles and looking with utter disdain at the cup of tea Harry had forgotten on the lobby desk. Disdain was too soft a word. Soft like Louis’ hair, like his unreasonably long eyelashes. Those eyelashes framed eyes so disgusted they would’ve boiled the water right out of the tea mug if they could’ve. Harry _loved_ him.

To be fair, Harry fell in love a lot _._ This was particularly impressive given that he lived in an inn outside of a village where the allies (enthusiastic, lovely allies; it was a good village, Harry loved the village, too) outnumbered actual queer people at the annual Pride parade. And three of the cutest boys in that village were part of the pack, were like brothers and so, ew. Against the odds, Harry persevered. He sowed love like it was an unseasonably warm September and he had just one more chance before cold sealed the earth shut forever.

He was single again nonetheless, luckily, fortunately, blessedly, when he first saw Louis. Falling in love was a spectacular surprise in the middle of a Christmas eve through which Harry had hitherto been drifting with some malaise. There was the full moon to look forward to, obviously. But with nearly all the pack gone deep in the woods, Harry hadn’t been expecting much more than a solitary romp near the treeline.

But there he was, curling protectively over his bag (like anybody would steal that bag), the fittest boy Harry had seen in a dog’s age. He had eyes so blue they snapped like winter, a delicate but strong frame, and a suspicious mouth that Harry wanted to lick into immediately, as if he were still a puppy (Harry fell in lust a lot, too. He made a hasty but thorough scan of his interior soul. This was both).

Harry _wasn’t_ a puppy. He was a charming pretty-much-adult who was wearing his favorite jeans, and he was running the inn that this tiny, taciturn angel had wandered into.

“‘Lo!” he said, a little too loud, because the boy jumped.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said hastily, momentarily distracted from checking the boy out by a rush of concern. The boy’s face looked, if possibly, even more guarded than before. It only emphasized his tough, high cheekbones and paradoxically ethereal features. Harry was going to _die._

“Hi,” the boy said, in a higher voice than Harry expected and a strong accent, “I’d like a room.”

Excellent start. Harry had something that this boy needed. Harry had a lot of things this boy needed, warm room, warm bed, warm arms. Harry had a great bed in his own room, actually. Harry swallowed, and got himself under control. The moon always did this to him, made him jump about forty steps ahead. Try a joke, how about.

“Oh no, the rooms have already gone to sleep. Can’t possible wake them.”

Harry paused. This was the point where the pack would’ve amiably ignored his bad joke, although Zayn might’ve walked away entirely. But the gorgeous boy in front of Harry looked stricken.

He _felt_ stricken. Harry frowned. He set aside seduction and recalled the rest of his brain out from where it had been waiting for the moon in the woods, and in that instant-- _wow, ok, what?_

The brand-new stranger slash love of Harry’s life was a wolf. _He was a wolf._ He was totally a wolf. Harry had made a bad joke and there had been a cutting slice of panic in the air and it was definitely, totally telepathic.

“Hey, hey, I was joking, hey, sorry,” he said quickly, mind spinning. Wolf or not, scared boys needed to not be scared.

The panic cooled as soon as Harry spoke, leaving him wondering if he'd had a momentary delusion.

“Yeah,” the boy laughed, oh my god, it was cute. He had eyelashes that cast shadows on the thin skin of his undereye when he looked down. “Would love a room, though. Wake one up?”

Harry beamed at him, relieved too. “‘Course. Just you, then?”

Wolves didn't travel alone on a full moon. Wolves didn't travel _alone._ But apparently this one did.

Harry rattled around behind the desk with the booking form just to give himself time to think. Now he had pack duties to figure out on top of figuring out who this boy was and how Harry was going to convince him to kiss Harry at some point, preferably soon.

Harry looked at the boy stealthily, from under his brow. He smelled wolf, too, like he didn't know he wasn't holding that signal in. It was black tea and something sweet and tart that caught under Harry's tongue. The boy looked back. Harry felt caught out, so he babbled.

“You’ve got the pick of them, actually. Sometimes we get a few folks in for Christmas skiing but I think the snowstorm’s keeping most people away. Lucky you got here when you did, it should hit hard tomorrow. Going to be a white Christmas, yeah?”

Christ, could Harry be less of a dork, maybe.  

“Lucky,” the boy repeated. His mouth had an unconscious gentling tilt to it. He looked so tough when they were making eye contact and then so mild when he thought no one was looking. He hadn’t asked to meet the pack lead and he hadn’t followed any of the protocols and he'd marched straight through the door into a strange pack’s home and he hadn’t showed any embarrassment or awareness over accidentally knifing Harry with the strongest telepathic blast Harry had felt in ages. Which shouldn’t even be possible.

It was a mystery, stumbled in out of the cold right into Harry’s hands, on the eve of the winter storm. Now he was filling out the room form. The mystery’s name was Louis Tomlinson.

Tomlinson sounded like a pack name, but Harry didn't recognize it. Then again, Louis Tomlinson was alone.

“Preference on floor, Louis Tomlinson?” he asked, accidentally repeating the full name from thinking about it, and mentally kicking himself.

“First,” the boy said, damn right, with a full moon. Oh damn! There was a full moon. Harry was going to meet this boy’s wolf, one way or another. Harry had butterflies.

He decided to try a more direct approach.

“I’ll give you the view, looks right out on the forest. Normally it costs extra, but seeing as you’re our most special guest, I think you should have it.”

That was a dog whistle if he’d ever given one. _Looks right out on the forest,_ indeed. But Louis didn’t blink. 

“That sounds perfect,” he said. His voice was so relieved. Harry took a closer look at the boy, who smelled like the train station and long hours of travel and not like any pack. Harry handed him the key and took a drink of his tea. Louis looked like he needed sleep, and possibly food. Pack protocols and the hypothetical danger of strange wolves be hanged, Harry was the host tonight.

Unexpectedly, Louis pointed at Harry’s novel behind the desk.

“Yours?”

Technically, Harry had gotten it from Liam, who had stolen it from Niall, who took forever to read things, and he was supposed to finish it before Niall remembered.

“Yeah,” Harry said, pleased that Louis had asked. “Genius stuff, have you heard of this series? The magic system is so cool, only just started, but I’m really liking it.”

“I’m reading it too,” Louis said, and he actually pulled _the same book_ out of his terrible bag. Harry caught a glimpse of a neatly-folded pile of clothes, and two other books besides. This was officially a romcom. Harry could just melt.

“It’s great,” Louis said. His eyes were still watching Harry, clearly evaluating the major risk of showing an emotion about something.

“Oh, sick,” Harry said. Showing emotions was Harry's favorite. “You’re nearly through, no spoilers!”

“I’ve got the sequel too,” Louis said like he was revealing a grand secret, an unexpected crinkle appearing in the corners of his eyes. Harry managed to not ask the boy to stay forever.

“What a coincidence,” he said, feeling a full grin coming on.

“Hopefully your rooms have lamps, for reading,” Louis said, somewhat weakly. Was that a bad joke? Harry grinned more. He tried the dog whistle one more time.

“You’ll barely need it. It’s gonna be such a bright moon tonight, you could probably read by it.” Laying it on thick. He may as well have waggled his eyebrows when he said _moon_.

“Yeah, I know,” Louis said, dropping the book and closing his bag, and looking different. Shut off again. In contrast to his face, Harry caught the tiniest shiver from his mind. This gorgeous stranger’s telepathy was so strange, diffuse and light, like somebody brushing past you in a crowd without noticing. A flicker of sadness you weren’t supposed to overhear. It was so poignant that Harry drew in a quick, shallow breath of air.

Louis went off to his room and Harry sat down in the chair behind the lobby desk.

“Holy fucking shit,” he whispered into his tea. Boring night manning the desk this was _not._

Harry had to face the unimaginable, unbelievable, uninterpretable possibility: Louis Tomlinson was a wolf, and he _didn’t know it._

***

Harry listened to Louis describe his favorite books in the lounge and he thought, _this one is special._

He had an instinct about these things. Ok, so not a wolf instinct, but a Harry instinct, which Harry had long maintained was equivalent to whatever primeval voodoo intuition the wolf spirit left their people, back in mythic days, or whatever. The boys generally made fun of him for his faith in his own first impressions but even they, begrudgingly, admitted it. Harry was never wrong about people. He hadn’t been wrong about Zayn, for instance.

Who wouldn’t want to know more about someone who liked robots so much? Louis was distractingly pretty in a blue shirt that brought out his eyes, even more blue than Harry had noticed in the lobby. He waved his hands in the air while he described the things he liked about the books he was recommending, before seeming to notice that he was doing it, and tucking them back down to his sides. Harry’s eyes hadn’t been able to leave his wrists, elegant and too thin.

The Elvis album was a hit, not that Harry was surprised, because Harry loved this album and played it on repeat until Zayn pretended that he was going to break it, every year, and then Liam started fretting about it and Zayn stopped, because Zayn could manage all manner of Harry’s shenanigans but he couldn't stand it when Liam’s eyebrows went that way.

Louis had eaten the leftover ziti that Harry strategically threw in his face as soon as he got to the kitchen, and Harry watched him eat a lot of cookies too, with satisfaction. He loosened up over sugar and the absurd word game that nobody ever felt like playing with Harry. He played words that Harry didn’t even know, like _ambit._

And all through it, Louis showed no indication of knowing that Harry was a wolf, too. Or he was a really good liar, but a rare city wolf, too far from his own instincts to realize how much he was signaling. Mysteries.

They ended up on the floor together, which was excellent because it was another step closer in towards actually getting to touch Louis. Harry had gotten bolder, probing into the way he’d noticed Louis watch him walk out of the room, the weighted air when he’d laid himself down on the floor just an inch or two closer than he would’ve with somebody else, and there had been a flash in Louis’ eyes that said _yes._

Harry leaned in. Louis pulled himself upright.

“I should go to bed,” Louis said, abruptly. He looked startled, or maybe wary, even though nothing in the room had changed, Elvis still warbling on, Christmas decorations still doing their cozy things. Harry wrinkled his nose with frustration, but smoothed his face out. Soon enough, the moon would rise.

“Ok,” he said. He wondered--what was happening under that fluffy hair and that thin, worried mouth? Did Louis have a plan, did he feel the hot anticipation that Harry did, like there was moonbeam coming in the windows, trying to find them? Outside the windows, the wind whistled in the trees. Harry could hear it, even across the fields. And from the look on his face, Louis could too.

Louis got up and then he actually _arranged the blanket bin,_ straightening the spare throws and the slippers he’d borrowed, being the sweetest human being to exist.

Or, not human, but Harry thought the notion applied.

“Hey Lou,” Harry said, “Maybe we could go for a hike tomorrow, in the woods. I know all the hikes.”

 _And more,_ he whispered in his mind, _I can feel the things you want. Let me show you._

He didn’t need wolf instincts, the dimming in Louis’ eyes or the flutter in Louis’ heart rate, to know that Louis was lying when he gave Harry that shallow look and false nod and repeated his own words back to him. Like it was easier than coming up with his own words to say.

“Maybe we could go on a hike.”

***

Harry stood at the edge of the forest.

_his forest, their forest, run, run with the pack_

Yeah, ok, Harry thought back at it, impatiently, yes, I get it, you’re ready to go. _Wait_.

The wolfish need paced a tight circle in his belly. Harry shook his head at himself, shook his hair out around his face. The moon was crazy-making, a time for pack and solidifying bonds of loyalty and usually, just a whole lot of fun.

Nobody liked getting stand-guard duties during the full moon for this reason, but tonight, Harry felt lucky. Tonight, and always.  

All wolves had to change at the full moon. All wolves, even the ones who didn’t want to be wolves, even the ones who had no idea what that meant. All he had to do was wait.

It was supposed to be dangerous. That’s why there were protocols for this kind of thing, for what to do when a strange wolf with sharp eyes showed up on your territory unannounced. Harry was unclear about what danger Louis could possibly present, but he had a little brother’s laser focused intuition about what was going to get him into trouble with Gemma, and this probably was. Harry didn’t spare an ounce of effort worrying about it. Harry didn’t worry about much, usually.

_Louis._

There was a new wolf consciousness, rippling into existence on the telepathic field without a trace of awareness that that was a thing that existed. Harry nearly dropped into a crouch against the tall tree he’d been standing under, nearly felt his jaw snap into teeth and muzzle, but Harry had excellent training. He stayed human, because humans could think about more complex puzzles, and Louis was complex if he was anything.

Harry’s human mind stuttered, caught on the wolf. There was the tell-tale ripple of transformation energy and joy and wow, ok, the _fear,_ Harry didn’t feel fear a lot--Harry hadn’t, maybe, ever felt fear like this before.

Harry had never faced anything in this forest that had actually succeeded in scaring him. He crossed his arms, tapped with his fingertips, and waited. And there he was, a white figure against the empty field, plaintive in solitude. Louis was making his way unerringly towards the forest, drawn into it like they all were. Harry smiled.

His was a quicksilver, multifaceted mind. Harry had slipped into it before he’d even realized, like starting to catch yourself and looking down to see your hands already braced on the floor and thinking _huh, I’m falling._ Harry felt dizzy. He'd been slipping into other wolves’ minds since before he could talk, since he was a baby. But nothing like this. Louis’ wolf was chaotic and tangled and wild and _so, so alone._

 _Not alone,_ Harry thought, not anymore.

Louis had thrown himself at the trees with desperation, too far away for Harry’s human eyes now, but Harry could feel the wolf _four paws claws tail pant BITE_ _run._

_Run_

_Run_

_Far_

_Dangerous_

_Oh, go on,_ Harry thought, already more fond than he had any right to be, _not to me._

Too distant for Louis to realize or too human or at least, Louis could only read it as part of the pull of the forest, welcoming. That wasn’t wrong, Harry supposed.

***

Louis was unfocused, his mind skittering free through the planes that connected them. Harry spared a minute to feel concerned about whether anybody else would notice, but the pack was likely too distant and too bound up in their own togetherness to hear. The nature preserve was enormous. And telepathy was fickle, worked best when you already knew who you were looking for.  

Louis’ mind had no idea it was in a shared world. His telepathy was disinhibited, unlike anything Harry had felt, sense sight as obvious as falling into a cold river. 

Harry tracked him with infinite ease. Louis went north, like he had to get further behind the curtain of winter, put ice and snow and stiff pine needles between himself and human civilization. And like he knew about the pack boundaries, which of course he didn’t, he couldn’t. But he still went to straight for the heart of the territory, the safest place in Harry's world. Where the trees made dark, branching tunnels of comfort.

Harry rather fancied he could’ve tracked Louis either way, even if Louis had had a mind as steel-shut as Zayn’s. His mind was so bright it was easy to find, even in the dark.

***

_Hi._

***

Harry had leapt without thinking. Louis was panicked--Harry could feel the threads of silver spinning, could see the lip-drawn snarl-fight rolling over his untamed face. Wolf panic didn’t allow for subtlety. Harry had leapt on him to smash the panic right out of Louis’ system, pin him down, unlock it by overriding Louis’ instincts with compression, with an obvious welcome. He snapped playfully in Louis’ face, tugged at his ears, and felt him slump down. That was a relief.

It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Now Harry felt worried. Louis was even thinner than he looked under his thick fur. Chills were running through him, paws braced out on the hard ground, rigid where Harry draped over his shoulders. Despite the worry, Harry also felt a jolt of person-wolf-both excitement at Louis’ body under his. Finally, they were talking for real.

_Happy you’re here_

_Happy to know you_

Harry thought, loudly. Gemma always said (mostly to Liam, who was still the worst at telepathy, too much self-doubt, too much censoring), blunt words landed best.

Louis had the feeling of--someone speaking multiple languages at once, a cocktail party where everyone was saying your name, waking up to a radio that was switching channels--Harry purred a deep kind of growl in his chest, smushing Louis down into the grass, because _oh my god, relax._ Harry wasn’t usually the most terribly frightening physical presence as a wolf, but he was heavy because he was still long-limbed. And he was clearly more comfortable in this body than Louis was, disadvantaged from being shocked out of his mind.

Louis said a million different things in Harry’s mind and not a single one of those things was _I’m relaxed_. He jolted under Harry’s forelegs, frantic as a pup on his first full moon, not that Harry could blame him. It was probably a lot to learn about the existence of other wolves for the first time in your life.

Louis was god-damn beautiful as a wolf. Harry hoped pretty desperately that he had a good enough barrier on his own telepathy that that wasn’t coming across. He was pretty sure he did.

_Trespass?_

Louis thought hard at him, with a curling pound of his tail that felt like a question mark. Louis didn’t have any idea how easy his mind was to read. Harry sank right through the surface cognition into the emotional depths. When you were young, you were taught to walk the strange boundaries of your own brain and make rules for visitors. The telepathy was easy to give into, but it wasn’t compulsory.

Harry had always thought of it like a replica of the inn in his mind, doors inward to increasing intimacy. Some doors, you didn't often open even for yourself.

No one had taught that to Louis. Louis’ depths felt miserable and agonized, crash-landed in the middle of instincts he’d never felt before.

_Don't. Worry._

Harry thought emphatically. He was still pressing Louis into the ground. Fuck it. He started grooming Louis again. He pulled gently at his ruff, resolutely at the loose skin around his ears, licking and nipping and too in-your-face for Louis’ wolf instincts to do anything but give a big, confused huff of air and just let him do it. Harry's preferred weapon of mass destruction was affection.

Comfort-feeling, Harry caught it on the edge of Louis’ mind. Take that. He was steady under Harry now, his lean thin body warmer and more open.

It was way, way over the line of behavior with someone who was still pretty much a stranger but Harry didn’t care. It was all far too much to explain through the fritz-wire panic connection of Louis’ newborn telepathy. Grooming circumnavigated it, a lower brainstem shortcut into calm.

Louis huffed a sigh through his nose, a kind of wrinkled-sounding, high-pitched noise that sounded cutely human. He moved his face just barely, almost imperceptibly, closer to Harry. It was nothing, the barest trust, and Harry’s telepathy still fully stuttered.

_Let's run_

Harry thought, _let's run together._ He was feeling it and he knew Louis was too. They needed to go, be wild.

Louis’ mind was an absolute _waterfall_ of joy-feeling. Harry actually yelped and fell backwards, scrambling with his hind paws in the grass.

_Sorry_

Louis thought, twisting his muzzle around with a sharp gesture, glee shut down like a steel trap had fallen over it. It was disconcertingly familiar in Louis’ mind, something he must do often, automatically.

_Ok_

_You’re ok_

Harry sent laugh-feeling between them and lunged forward to snuffle fondly against Louis’ ruff. Louis’ dark eyes watched him, wary and unblinking, but Harry could feel the shudder under his fur that clearly wanted to move back and return the favor.

Louis’ fur was like his hair, so silky it just floated in the night air. He was smaller than Harry as a wolf, but surprisingly, maybe the stronger one in this form. Harry could feel stamina in the ropey shape of his compact torso. He was still half-crouched into the grass, so Harry took advantage of it, looping a foreleg onto Louis’. Tentatively, Louis raised his muzzle to touch into Harry’s ruff. Harry managed to not whine for more.  

One thing that Harry just adored was the fact that the wolf gave him the reason to be as touchy as he wanted to be. You either ran together, or you didn’t. He loved the rapid heartbeat exchange across the telepathy and the instinct running between them, so much faster than if they were people. Sometimes Zayn said terribly unkind things about the fact that Harry had grown up in this furthest North pack, spent half his life as a wolf, that it gave him _permeable boundaries_ like that was supposed to mean anything.

_Permeable?_

Oh, shit. Harry hadn’t meant to slip into complicated human thinking. Hard to keep it all separate with the mystery of Louis Tomlinson in front of his face.

Louis growled, low in his throat. Annoyance-feeling. His telepathy was getting quicker and clearer, pushing back into Harry's mind. He was clever, maybe cleverer than Harry. That would be delightful; Harry loved smart boys.

But Harry was good at this, and they were in his forest. He held Louis easily at the surface of his thoughts.

_Tell me_

Louis thought desperate and consuming. Other wolves, pack, _not alone. What did it all mean. What does it mean for me?_

Louis had always been alone. Harry felt it like a core truth of the universe. The wolf had been dreaming his whole life about something he thought didn't even exist.

It was all too much to explain, and it scared him, the depth of the feeling and the darkness of it. Harry could feel the strain that Louis didn't want to show. Harry didn't trust himself to try to grapple with it, not like this. No hiding in telepathy. _Lots of time. Later. For now--_

_Run_

_Run_

***

“Are you magic?” Louis whispered. It was strange to hear his human voice again. Harry hadn't heard the accent in his mind. But it wasn't like telepathy was actual words.

The woods had been unfathomably lovely, like they always were, and they’d run together for hours. It had become a blur of burning muscles and panting lungs and the full moon release that was so good, letting go of that mysterious energy that seemed to burn inside you until you did it.

“Well, I can turn into a freaking giant wolf,” Harry said. Louis twitched.

“Tell me something I don't know,” he said, an essential core of humor running under all the shock and tremble. What a brave one. “But I can't conjure clothes. Believe me, I would've. Many times.”

“Oh,” Harry said, “We have caches around the territory. For whenever we need.”

Dawn light was creeping on the edge of the horizon. Harry could sense it more than see it, because they were still surrounded by trees, in a clearing not far from the field’s edge. Just over the next small hill, Harry knew they would see the inn.

They’d fallen back into human form and Harry had disappeared through the trees to give Louis space and then come back with a handful of worn, but comfortable clothes that he’d pulled out of the steel chest, one of many scattered around the treeline.

“Smart,” Louis whispered. He still sounded worryingly terrified. Harry had pulled on a loose pair of sweatpants and sat crosslegged across the clearing, even though he would’ve preferred to sit next to Louis, maybe wrap an arm around his shoulders.

“Yes,” Harry said, “It's a very nice place. Welcome to the territory! I'm so glad that you came here.”

He hoped it sounded reassuring enough. A very nice place full of big wolves. Louis didn't need to hear everything at once.

Louis retched violently onto the forest floor.

“Fuck,” Harry said. Maybe not so reassuring.

“You're a wizard,” Louis mumbled.

“What?” Harry asked blankly. He was across the clearing without even realizing what he was doing, one hand on Louis’ back and the other tensed to grab him if needed. You probably weren’t supposed to get in so close to a strange, lone wolf when you didn’t have your own teeth on hand. The lone wolf could change back, frenzy on you. There was really no telling what that frigid darkness he'd felt inside Louis meant.

Harry patted Louis’ back. Fuck the darkness. It was morning in Harry's forest.

Louis looked up. His pretty eyes were red-rimmed and full of water and his face was slack, reluctant to be human. A long string of saliva hung from his lower lip. He wobbled.

“Since you're magic,” he said, the words slurring. “Get it? You're a wizard, _Harry.”_

Louis pitched into a neat little crumple in the grass.

***

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” Harry sang to himself in a breathy non-tune as he carried Louis back into the inn, accidentally knocking his ankle against about four different doorways, but protecting Louis’ limp body with his life.

Harry brought Louis back to his own room and laid him on his bed. Instinct overrode courtesy: wolves did better surrounded by the closeness and intimacy of other wolves. Harry would apologize later. Unless, you know, Louis felt like staying there. That would be fine, too.

Harry sat on the edge of the bed and brushed Louis’ hair back from his forehead. There was a thin line of sweat on the edge of his forehead, and Harry could see the veins in his eyelids. It was probably shock and exhaustion and the heavy toll of experiencing two-way telepathy for the first time. Harry pulled a knee up to his chest and rocked in a small movement, anxious.

“One neat thing is that wolves don't really need to brush their teeth! Cool trivia for you, don’t have to worry about throwing up. Not that you should worry, anyway. You were fine. Like dogs, the whole self-cleaning bacteria thing. I mean I still do, when I'm human. I like the mint,” he added, in case the conversation sounded too gross. Harry dearly wanted Louis to not think anything about his mouth was gross.

Louis was breathing deep and slow. Too slow for Harry's liking, his eyes still plastered shut, wet eyelashes. Harry slowly stroked up Louis’ back. That was what he liked when he was sick, though he hadn't been moonsick in, well, ever. His skin was so hot that Harry could feel it through the loose cache-shirt, some red waffle knit that he was pretty sure had belonged to Liam once. He was so tiny, but Harry could feel the strong muscle of his back.

“Another cool thing is that we heal really fast,” Harry whispered. Louis looked good in red, or he would, later, when he felt better.  “You should know that, Louis. The healing abilities are really the big thing.”

Louis sighed. Harry froze, his hand still pressed into Louis’ back. He should take it away, but he didn’t. Louis rolled his face into the bed. Just the tip of his nose smushed against Harry’s sheets. He inhaled.

“Hi,” Harry said. Louis opened his eyes. They were so blue. He fixed them on the herringbone-grey fabric of Harry’s thick flannel winter covers. There was a comforter with miniature white Elk figures. It was a bit rustic, but, Harry did live in a giant wooden inn.

“Harry?” Louis said.

“Yeah?” Harry whispered back.

“What the fuck is happening?” Louis asked. He sounded raw.

“Not a lot,” Harry said, “You’re back in the inn. Oh, and there are other wolves like you in the world. I’m one. I’ve got a family, too, but you don’t have to worry about that.”

Louis’ face looked pinched, his eyebrows snapped together. Harry had the sudden desire to roll over Louis and kiss away the fold in his forehead. _That would be terrible,_ he told himself, firmly, _please do not be terrible._

“Are you sure this is not a delusion?” Louis asked. He turned halfway onto his back to squint up at Harry, shielding his eyes from the lamp. He was looking better. Maybe he’d listened about the healing. Maybe it was the circling warmth of Harry’s wolf, the stability of pack-space. Harry had gotten sick at Niall’s grandparents’ one time and they’d driven five hours on a sunday night just so he could get better at the inn, near the trees.

“Pretty sure,” Harry said. What the hell. He pulled himself to sit fully on the bed, put his back to the headboard and stretched his legs out, careful to keep an inch between them and Louis.

“I'm just like you,” Harry said, hoping that maybe that was comforting but not sure if it would be.

“But Harry,” Louis said, through a scratchy throat, eyelids heavy, “You're not a monster.”

Harry couldn't breath, for a second. But Louis was yawning mightily, slumping back to his side. Words slipping out that he hadn't even realized he'd vocalized.

He was fading, still deeply moonsick. And if Harry had to guess, even more exhausted than he showed. It felt like an exhaustion that went deeper and a lot further back than this one night.

“I mean, it’s the kind of delusion I _would_ have,” Louis muttered. He sounded cranky and unconvinced and endearingly honest.

“Like oh, wow, suddenly there’s another magical werewolf and he’s also a hot guy. And he’s read my book. Fucking ridiculous.”

His eyes were closing again despite himself.

Harry smiled. He wanted to lay right down and hold Louis. He even had an instinct that that would be good for the long lost wolf side of him, but it was invasive enough to be the stranger who'd launched into Louis’ brain and then brought him back here.

Harry stayed upright and watched the pale ice pinks and blues streaking across the sky through his window as the dawn rose. Louis twitched when Harry moved, vigilant even in total exhaustion.

“I’ll stay awake,” Harry promised, “You’re safe. Just--you’re safe here. Just sleep.”

“Please don't…sell me,” Louis breathed. His eyes were fluttering, open and shut. His fingers were clutching into the sheet. They looked too tight. Harry pried them gently open and held Louis’ hand. It seemed to help.

“I won’t,” Harry said, “Super normal thing to be afraid of, huh.”

There was a pulse of thought in the room, slippery with the feel of near-unconsciousness. _They'll sell you to the circus if they find out,_ someone had said, angry and scared, and cruel because they were scared, but a long time ago, so long it was like the echo of an echo, a worn track in Louis’ mind. _Maybe I don't care anymore,_ was Louis’ last thought as it vanished, _maybe I'll learn tricks._

Then, nothing but sleep. Harry smoothed back the long fringe that had fallen across Louis’ face again.

“You shouldn't be able to do that,” he whispered. “Who the hell are you, Louis Tomlinson?”


	2. Chapter 2

“Gemmaaaaaa,” Harry whisper-shouted in her ear, “Merry Christmas!”

Gemma rolled over in bed and pulled a pillow over her ear. Harry scoffed. A pitiful defense, Gemma should know better.

He kicked off his fluffy rabbit slippers (“it’s a joke!” Niall had protested, when Harry looked insulted, snap at a rabbit _one time_ during a pack run, swear to the moon, he wasn’t ever going to actually go after it, sometimes the wolf instincts just reared up) and crawled right into Gemma’s bed, under the covers.

“Blerrgh,” Gemma groaned.

“Long night? Lots of running? Any tension at the boundaries?” Harry poked at her ribcage through her pink pajamas. Harry had gotten those for her two years ago. They had diamonds on them. Harry tried to keep everybody on-brand.

“Who do you take me for,” Gemma mumbled into the sheet, ignoring the poking with the resigned expertise of a veteran to the crosshairs of Harry’s physical affections.  

“Tension at the boundaries _,_ as if. The territory’s never been more safe. We’ve got allied packs on either side and they’re miles away. If you recall, one of your friends is dating one of theirs.”

Harry grinned at Gemma’s back. He did recall. He also enjoyed it when even half-asleep and cranky, Gemma snapped into pack alpha mode to summarize the bullet points of safety that she cared so much about. She had been an amazing lead since Anne had gotten so important, running treaties and constantly away on trips to mediate pack disputes from North to East. Harry had always known she would be, even when Gemma had spent the six months before the lead ceremony coming into his room at night to lie on the floor and say ridiculous things about how it was never going to work. Harry had patted her shoulder patiently and just waited. And now, everybody looked at Gemma the way Harry always had.

“Awesome, so all good, that’s great,” Harry said. Issues tended to come up during full moon if anytime. Today, after a long night’s run, everybody would be drained and domestic and inclined towards Christmas cheer and long, slow conversations over hot cocoa by the fire. It was really excellent timing.

“Only I’ve got a special kind of present, Gemma,” Harry said, carefully.

Gemma rolled over to face him, suspicious eyes, and she must've still been feeling the moon because she grabbed him and licked up his cheek. Harry wrinkled his face horribly.

“Grosssss,” he hissed.

“Shut it,” Gemma said, poking Harry back, hard. “You smell weird. What do you mean, a present? What did you do, baby brother?”

Harry cleared his throat delicately. “Nothing big,” he said, “Only maybe last night I did more than watch over the inn.”

Gemma was wide awake now. “Tell me,” she said.

“So the present is a wolf,” Harry said.

“What!” Gemma yelled.

Harry startled, and he wobbled on the side of the bed and grabbed onto Gemma for support, who refused to let herself get pulled out onto the floor, and pulled Harry back instead. Now Harry was nose-to-nose with his big sister, and she looked frightening.

“A nice one, a great one,” Harry said rapidly, “His name is Louis! He’s adorable!”

“Oh my fucking god, Harry, a strange wolf is here? Why didn’t you tell me immediately?” Gemma snarled. Harry gave her an unimpressed look and poked her in the ribcage again. She may be pack lead but she’d always be his big sister.

“Because we all had to sleep, Louis most of all,” Harry said, reasonably. “Because nothing bad was going to happen, I was keeping an eye on him.”

“Harry for fuck’s sake,” Gemma said, sitting up and scrambling out of bed, “Get out of here while I change. You cannot just trust the entire world, Harry. This is a big deal.”

“I know it is,” Harry insisted. Louis was a very big deal.

“Where is he?” She said.

“Um, maybe in my bedroom?” Harry said. Gemma groaned.

“Oh, hell, _Harry,”_ she said.

Harry sniffed. “Not like _that,”_ he said, with dignity, and bolted to find Louis. It might be a rude awakening.

 

***

 

Louis wasn’t asleep in Harry’s room where Harry had left him, tucked into the elk comforter. Harry looked at the neatly-made covers, pulled tight on his bed with all the wrinkles brushed out, like no one had been there at all. It looked more professional than even the beds in the downstairs rooms where guests stayed. Tight hospital corners.

He felt cold and worried, pounding down the stairs, until he heard a voice floating from the kitchen down the hall and Niall's laugh. Harry skidded down on the carpet in his slippers.

“Every single full moon?” he heard Louis ask.

“Yeah, and I know it sounds dumb, but it’s pretty great,” Niall responded, “It’s a big part of keeping happy in a pack, running together. It’s like a whole….well you know, you feel like you have two sets of instincts, sometimes? Being with the pack kind of helps handle all of that.”

“I guess,” Louis said, repressed marvel in his tone. He was looking at Niall with big eyes, soaking every piece of information in. Harry felt a flitter of jealousy, and dismissed it.

“Happy Christmas morning,” Harry said, stepping through the door. Louis’ head whipped around and Harry watched, fascinated, as about ten different emotions rose and then vanished on his face.

“Hi,” Louis seemed to settle on, softly.

“Hand me eggs, would you, Hazza-razza?” Niall asked. The kitchen was stocked up for both Christmas and an enormous post-run brunch whenever the wolves dragged their run-out asses out of bed. Niall usually wasn’t the first one up, and he usually wasn’t cooking. He was, however, one of the strongest telepaths in the house, second only to Harry.

“Met Louis here as he was running away out the side door,” Niall said casually, cracking an entire carton of eggs into a very large pan. He was standing over the stove in his rudolph pajamas, a dish towel over his shoulder. Louis was perched on a tall stool still in the red shirt from last night, but he’d pulled on a pair of his jeans, long holes at the knees more homemade than fashion.

“Looked like you were gonna walk back to the city, or something, didn’t you. I said might as well have breakfast first, you know?”

Louis looked obscurely guilty.

“Can't say I blame you,” Harry said, a calculated no-big-deal tone. “But I wasn't lying about the snowstorm today. Or the fact that you really are welcome to stay a bit. And it would do me a favor if you’d eat some bacon or Niall will finish all of it himself and then whine to us about feeling sick.”

Louis’ eyes flickered to the window, where the morning light was a brilliant white reflection off snow clouds, and the woods sent crackling ice noises like messages down the fields. He looked back at Harry, eyes so wide. Harry smiled softly. Nobody understood needing to feel free like another wolf.

Harry stepped around Louis’ stool, giving him a wide berth, and came up behind Niall to hug him fiercely.

“Merry Christmas,” he said, which meant _thank you for stopping him,_ and Niall nodded, chin digging into Harry’s arm. He batted Harry on the shoulder with a rubber spatula.

The snow was starting, big flat wet flakes that were going to ice hard into a gleaming surface. Harry could hear it on the wind, the inches and inches that were going to come down today. The inn was already sinking into the settled deep quiet of a snowstorm that Harry loved: buffered from the world even more than usual. The kitchen was warm, the forest was cold, and everyone who mattered was here. Wolves wanted to be free, but after the exhaustion of the full moon, they wanted to be _safe._

Louis’ feet were tucked up underneath him on the highest rung of the stool, away from the drafts of the floor. Harry was going to have to follow this boy around with slippers, honestly. There were slippers _everywhere_ in the inn, there was no excuse for this.

Niall chattered about the pack’s run, benignly and intentionally ignoring Louis. Harry nodded, handing over seasoning and cheese, but his entire focus drifted behind them, curious and careful. Louis’ telepathy was still there, extraordinary. But it was hushed and muted, a prickling on the border of Harry’s mind, like a magnet drifting towards nearby metal, not close enough to snap together. He could feel Louis relaxing with every cheery word out of Niall’s mouth, bless him.

Niall was deep into a story that Harry knew well, about a time they’d gone human-hiking for views deep in the nature preserve and Liam had gotten so startled by a large crow that he’d fully ripped into wolf, and then been tangled in his own hiking boots. It was a great story, made greater by Niall’s hand gestures, but Louis interrupted it.

“Wait,” Louis said sharply, twisting to look directly at Harry, which was pleasing. “You get--you can change when it's not a full moon? Whenever you like? Same as last night?”

Niall and Harry looked at him with identical puzzled faces.

“Hazza, Razza?” Louis prompted, in a little joking-growl with Niall’s ridiculous nickname and a twist to his lips that gave Harry butterflies.

“We all can,” Harry said. “All wolves like us can.”

Harry was best at it, he didn’t say, although he was quite proud of it. Harry could flow in and out of the wolf like stepping into the shower.

“I can't,” Louis said. “So I _am_ different.”

That wasn’t right. That couldn’t be right.

“No, you're not, not different,” Harry said loudly, shaking his head. He had a sudden gut feeling that it was important to not let Louis keep going down this track. _I only just found you. You're one of us._

Niall glanced at Harry, ever attuned to other people's moods.

“It's not always easy to go back and forth if you...haven't had a pack for a while,” Niall said. Neither of them really knew-- _wolves had packs_ \--but they could guess, based on Zayn.

“Only on a full moon,” Louis said. “Only ever.”

“But like when you were really scared, or angry? When you were younger? Anytime you have a lot of adrenaline, yeah? You changed then, you must've,” Harry said.

“Trust me,” Louis said flatly, “If I could've, I would've.”

Harry didn't need the sickening twist in Louis’ telepathy, a jarring contrast to his shutter-blank face, to know there was a lot behind that. What kind of situation would you have had to have been in, to have needed the wolf like that, wild and dangerous and uncontrollable?

Harry hated the mounting evidence that whoever this boy was, his life so far hadn't been what it should've been. Fuck that. Harry stepped right up to the stool and pulled Louis in for a hug.

There was a muscle-deep flinch in Louis’ back as he startled. Surprise whipped through Louis’ mild, still-present telepathy, like touch itself was a surprise. Harry couldn’t honestly have imagined that feeling if he hadn’t been literally getting it straight from the source.

But then Louis melted, tilted his head into Harry’s chest and put his forehead there, breathing lightly. Like he was afraid to break something.

Harry's palms fit so nicely along his back, all the way from the side to his spine, cradling him in. Louis’ feathery hair was long and soft and ticklish under Harry’s jaw. He smelled musky from the long night, and like Harry’s bed which was gratifying, and also sweet and boy and bitter, all jumbled together. Harry wished the warmth that he felt was liquid, that he could pour it out from his hands, cover Louis completely.

“We ran together,” Harry said, quiet, reminding him. Seeing somebody’s wolf was like seeing who they really were. But running with somebody’s wolf was like getting to _be_ who they were.

“I don’t know what that means,” Louis whispered, so low that only Harry could hear it. There was so much more behind that. Harry could feel the spiralling painful confusion in Louis’ mind. He was re-writing his universe from scratch. Confusion was an understatement.

“It means we’re on a hugging basis,” Harry said, firmly.

“Gotta be a human freak for breakfast anyway,” Niall said, cheerfully, turning over bacon with the tongs. Harry’s stomach rumbled. They were all going to be carnivorous today.

Harry let go, with reluctance.

“Humans, wolves, jesus christ,” Louis said, “Am I human? Are you? Are we demons? Why don’t I also get wings, huh? Have you got horns, under all that hair?”

Louis bit the inside of his cheek and lowered his chin and looked pointedly at Harry, but with enough of a smile-pull in his mouth that Harry could tell he was trying to be sarcastic, recovering his cool from the hug, maybe.

“We really shouldn’t be the ones trying to explain to you,” Harry sighed, shaking his head, and absently running a hand through his hair. It was quite wild. No horns, though.

“Obviously, you’re meant to talk to pack leader--that’s my Gems--and she’ll do a much better job. She’ll know what to do. But don’t worry, she’s wonderful.”

“Oh,” Louis said. He dropped his eyes from Harry’s face, and Harry wondered if something about what he’d said was wrong.

“Or we could wait on all of that,” Harry said, “I mean you don't _have_ to meet Gems right away.”

“I don’t think so,” came a voice behind them. Niall yipped and Harry sighed. That no-holds-barred lead voice was unmistakable. Even Louis, without knowing anything about anything, straightened on his stool.

Gemma was standing in the kitchen doorway, arms folded.

“How long have you been eavesdropping?” Harry complained. She glanced at him for a millisecond but then went back to staring at Louis.

“Long enough,” she said. But quietly, for Gemma. She walked into the kitchen and brought pack tension in with her. Harry could smell two others in the hallway--Kian? Probably, and Michael. So Gemma really was taking this seriously, seriously enough to bring grown adult defenders. Against Louis.

“Your Gems?” Louis asked in a low voice, echoing Harry’s previous words. There was a weird emphasis on it.

“Yeah, meet my big sister,” Harry sighed. Louis did a quick double-take.

“Oh,” he said, “Your sister.”

“That’s what I _said_ ,” Harry said, sharper than he meant to. Honestly the whole conversation was stressing Harry out, especially the way that Gemma was poised in the door, the smell of the defenders in the hallway, waiting.

“What’s relevant is, I’m the lead of this pack,” Gemma said, tone like a hand on your shoulder, pushing you down.

“I’m sorry, what are you?” Louis bit out. Oh, no. He could probably feel the wolf tensions without knowing what any of it meant. His mind felt ready to fight, the last thing he should be doing right now. Gemma’s nose twitched. She was infinitely kind and Harry's best beloved sister but she was also _lead_ and that went deep, to a black edge of protection Harry never wanted them to trigger.

Harry stepped back into Louis’ space, right in the line of sight for the defenders. Louis, confused, crowded back onto the kitchen table behind the stool to avoid touching Harry. Harry ignored this, dropped an arm around Louis’ shoulders and leaned his thigh into Louis’ leg. Even through denim and pajamas and in front of his big sister, Harry felt a creeping thrill under his skin at Louis’ sharp bones, the slight weight leaning into him.

“He’s not a threat,” Harry said, giving Gemma a you-better-understand-this glare. It usually worked. “He’s lost. He’s always been lost. He didn’t even know there were others.”

Louis was silent, but his telepathy was a cacophony. Harry almost couldn’t hear _himself_ think over it. Couldn’t they all tell, how confusing this was for Louis? How he hadn’t even known? Harry was surprised that Gemma and Niall weren’t flinching, too, but Harry had always been the best telepath.

Gemma walked forward with her stalking walk, long, slow, silent. She came right in front of Louis and then, shocking Harry, crouched down into a graceful one-knee in front of the stool, put a hand out. After a beat, Louis extended a hand, and Gemma squeezed it. It was a parental gesture, half-wolf and half-human, the lowered body language they were taught to use to defuse the animal instincts that hung over all of them like a knife, sometimes, ready to drop.

“Hey, puppy,” she said, like a long-lost aunt, like a big sister refusing to grace you with grown-up language. Harry could feel the trace of Louis’ human startlement at the wolf slang but underneath it, reassurance flooding the animal side. “So glad we found you.”

 

***

 

Gemma kicked everybody out of the kitchen to have a long, involved talk with Louis over bacon. Harry had no confidence that this was going to involve Louis talking much at all. He nevertheless scooped up a large plate of food and the pot of coffee and threw a wink at Louis as he pushed out to the lounge to find the boys and catch them up on all the excitement.

Louis’ cheeks went dusky-pink, which was _awesome._

Niall was waiting for him, both hands full of food and mouth full of bacon, as the hands had proved inadequate.

“Merry Christmas,” he mumbled around the bacon. “Got a present early huh?”

Harry kicked gracelessly into the air between them, missing Niall's shin by a mile. They made their way to the lounge.

“He came last night looking for a room. Felt him immediately.”

“I'm sorry, what?” Niall asked, looking shocked. “Even for you-”

Harry stole bacon off his plate. Liam and Zayn were hovering together near the lounge fireplace, and when they came in, Liam took an awkward step back in space. They were so weird. Zayn looked wired this morning, more than usual.

“No, I mean I felt his wolf, metaphysically, dumbass,” Harry said.

“I still don't know what that means,” Niall said as Liam and Zayn both yelped “ _Wolf?”_ in varying shades of dismay.

Harry sighed, deeply. It was shaping up to be a long morning and half his brain was occupied with listening anxiously for the kitchen door. He just wanted Louis in the same room again. He knew Gemma was going to do her thing, that Harry didn't objectively have some kind of special claim on Louis, but on the hand didn't he? He felt it. He felt _him._ He wasn't going to overly examine that.

“There's a new wolf, our age, showed up alone last night and _ran with Harry_ all night in the woods, apparently, like he was already pack,” Niall said, “Which Harry has given zero excuses for, by the way. Anyway, his name is Louis, he's freaked out, he's also impossible to read and desperately pretending that he understands more than he does, so we've all gotta be nice.”

Satisfied with his summary, Niall plopped down in front of the fire and arranged enough cushions behind him to eat his eggs.

“Merry Christmas and welcome back from the east, Li,” he said through a mouthful. “We missed you this month, just like last month.”

“Fucking, Harry, tell us what happened,” Zayn drawled, looking at Harry. Harry frowned, mostly at Niall.

“Wait, you don't feel his telepathy?”

All three exchanged glances.

“No,” Niall said, “No of course not.”

“No one?” Harry said. It was _right there._

“Are you telling me there's a lone wolf here and he's also telepathic with Harry when he's human?” Liam gasped. “But that's weird, Harry! That's not a thing!”

“Nobody's telepathic in human. I mean maybe like once when you're a baby but that’s like a half shift. Not when you're human.” Niall explained patiently. Niall was packborn too, which made him, on occasion, pretentious.

“I know, _obviously,_ ” Harry said, “But it's true. He's weird! Great, but weird,” he amended.

“Amazing,” Zayn said, not always a good sign, when Zayn was intrigued. “And no pack at all, his whole life. He must be hurting.”

Liam made a motion in the direction of movement toward Zayn, but stopped it. Zayn didn't look at him. They must be in a tiff again, typical, every full moon it had been happening, and Harry honestly didn’t have time for it.

“He doesn't know he's doing it,” Harry said, almost to himself. “I don't think he picks up on me, not that I'm trying. It's one way.”

“I don't feel ok about this,” Liam said.

“What a surprise,” Zayn muttered. Harry and Niall ignored their passive-aggressive sparring. It was the best strategy.

“Don’t tell him,” Harry said quickly, “I mean, I’ll tell him. Just, Niall’s right, he’s freaked out.”

“Niall’s always right,” Niall said, with his mouth full.

Harry shoved Niall’s shoulder, put his plate down on the floor and sat cross-legged in front of the fire, determined to stuff his face as much as possible while waiting. When life gives you overwhelmingly attractive mysteries, you need your bacon.

“Oh hey, he reads fantasy novels,” Harry said.

“Well that's something,” Zayn said.

 

***

 

Louis came out of the kitchen with Gemma, who had apparently advanced far enough into surrogate big sisterhood that she even put a hand to his upper back and nudged him into the lounge. Louis gave her a priceless look of horror.

“Hi,” Harry said, “Welcome back, you're staying, yeah?”

Louis opened his mouth and closed it. Harry looked at Gemma.

“Louis, meet the terrible boys. You already know Harry, so it's uphill from there.”

“Jesus,” Harry said, but Louis smiled, so it was worth it.

“As Louis and I discussed, no big decisions on Christmas, especially not when you're meeting a bunch of strangers in a snowstorm. Louis is gonna hang out today and be our guest for the holiday. You're welcome as long as you like,” Gemma finished, looking at Louis and nodding like it was just a repetition of something she'd already said.

“I, uh, I don’t want to interrupt the holiday, though,” Louis said. Gemma nodded, dismissively. He’d clearly said it a couple of times already.

“I'm gonna update the pack,” Gemma said, already on her way out the door. She'd be off to the village, then, and hopefully warning the older pack members that brunch was off. Louis had an expression like he was facing down an entire herd of stampeding elk, and it was just bacon and four boys his own age. Just how many other wolves there were was a truth that could keep.

“Take care of him,” she shot over her shoulder. Louis bristled, the shift in his shoulders pulling them tighter, a smooth hollow formed between his collarbone and shoulder muscle. His telepathy sparked, _not something to take care of._

Maddeningly, it made Harry want to push him down onto the nearest couch, right off his feet, bury his face in that mysterious hollow. Fucking _wolf, calm down,_ he said to the thick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Why didn’t life bend itself to Harry’s needs more readily?

“Louis, welcome to the northwest territories,” Liam said, stuffy as a Sunday pack protocol lesson, oblivious to Harry’s woes.

Zayn picked at his teeth with a fingernail, revealing white incisors under a fold of pink lip. “It's not a cult, whatever Li makes it sound like.”

“Don't listen to any of them,” Niall said, throwing Louis two pieces of bacon. Louis’ deceptively slender arm whipped out and caught both of them with forest-sharpened instincts. Even after just one night in the woods, Harry could see how much happier his wolf was.

“Thanks,” Louis said. And to Harry, “I see what you meant about a pack.”

“They’re not that bad,” Harry said.

“No, we are,” Zayn added.

“Please ignore them, I’m sorry,” Liam said, “Both of them are children before they’ve eaten.”

 _Dad wolf,_ Louis thought about Liam, clear as day. And then at Zayn, _Teen wolf._ Niall: _Bro wolf._

When Louis’ eyes flickered back to him he held his breath. _Big bad wolf,_ Louis thought with humorous satisfaction. And then a splashy vision of Louis as red riding hood, still in the red waffle shirt and all.

He was so _funny_ in his head. Harry had to stifle a snort of laughter.

Zayn and Liam were looking at Harry like he was embarrassing them. Harry knew that look. He wiped the dopey grin off his face and took one of the plates he'd stacked under his own and slid half the food on it.

“I stole you a bunch, before Liam got it all,” he said, jiggling it at Louis.

“You do seem like a younger brother,” Louis said, taking the plate and sitting on the floor, a few feet from everyone.

“How about you?” Zayn asked. “Any siblings? You're younger? Middle child. Where are you from? How’d you get here?”

“Zayn,” Liam sighed.

Louis’ face was blanker than blank. It hurt to look at. It wasn't cold, it was just--nothing.

“No,” he said, “No siblings.”

Niall chucked a blanket over Zayn’s face. Zayn came out snapping, and Harry didn’t miss the way that Louis gripped his plate tighter.

“Eat, then we'll get you a shower. Maybe when the wind dies down, we could make a snowman,” Harry said.

The wolf gave the gift of strength and energy but also restlessness, and people who lived in packs usually bonded over physical activity. Harry had no illusions about the fact that he was going to try every trick in the book on Louis. They could take Liam’s snowboards and his old red sled and make fools of themselves.

“Sure, absolutely, maybe a snow-wolf, why not,” Louis said, and he pressed his lips together in something that might have been edging toward a smile. It vanished as he ate, but at least he was eating. Liam looked anxious, and Zayn looked—whatever Zayn looked.

Harry looked at Niall, who looked back with a bit of egg on his chin, bedhead sticking jubilantly up the back of his ears. For trips to the hardware store and fixing the squeaky window and getting a spot on on a chest press, you go to Liam; for brutally honest fashion advice and kicking rocks around after a stressful day and black humor, you go to Zayn. But for an awkward room filled with the silence of strangers, there was only one person to go to.

Niall swallowed, and leaned forward, with all the unstoppable force of his magic friendliness.

“So Louis,” he said, “The first full moon that Zayn spent with us, he accidentally ran off a cliff.”

“A slope,” Zayn said, familiarly, because this was the way this story always began.

“An incredibly steep slope, if that’s what it was,” Liam said, the happy-Liam-smile starting in his cheeks.

“We were literally, all of us, yelling at him in his brain,” Niall said, “And the only thing we were getting back was, _don’t talk to me,”_

“Sue a guy for wanting a fraction of peace and quiet, jesus christ,” Zayn mumbled, “Bunch of co-dependent puppies.”

Niall’s eyes were sparkling. “That was only the beginning,” he said, “The real story is what was at the bottom of the cliff.”

“Please, go on,” Louis said, finally looking up from his plate. A bolt of mischief in his telepathy, shimmering like the golden Christmas lights, rustling through Harry’s mind. Harry sighed, happy.

Niall filled the room with stories. He told Louis about the nature preserve, the giant lake a few miles away that they’d swim in, in the summer, that was going to be thick enough with ice for skating in a few weeks. He didn’t say much about wolves, or packs, or Christmas. Liam added corroboration, and Zayn at least didn’t anything too awful. Harry didn’t say much, but he scooted closer to Louis on the carpet, close enough that Louis could scent him on the air. Louis’ knee was jittering up and down, a minute ticking nervous motion, but when Harry moved closer, it stopped.

 

***

 

Gemma texted to put Louis up in the gold bedroom. Harry put Louis up in the lavender bedroom. It happened to be next door to Harry's room, but, it also had the biggest radiator, and a large bookshelf, perfectly good reasons to choose that room, in case anybody asked. But why would they? It was a totally reasonable switch.

Louis threw his stuff into his bag more quickly than Harry had seen him do anything. Barely anything, and he still tried to hide it in his small hands. Harry looked at his own shoes and pretended he hadn’t seen Louis put five pieces of the guest soap in the side pocket of his bag, held tight in the curl of his palm like precious stones.

Outside had turned full on into a raging snowstorm. It buffeted the windows. Harry watched Louis throw glances at it, like he was gauging its force without wanting to ask. Harry would've just asked how long they were getting snowed in, and then complained loudly about it to anyone in earshot.

“I’m sure you’d like a shower,” Harry said.

“That would be nice,” Louis said. “We did run in the woods all night, yeah? I think I still have mud between my toes. Claws. Toes. Where do the claws go? Wouldn’t it be the worst hangnail, if they didn’t change back from your actual wolf nails? It’s never happened to me but like, what if?”

He was looking at Harry from under those eyelashes, a humorous crinkle in the corner of one narrowed eye. Harry realized that they were alone for the first time since Louis had fallen asleep on his bed, and he couldn’t stop the sappy smile spreading itself out on his face.

Louis’ telepathy felt stable. It hummed, quieted, an interested mind starting to stretch itself out into the pack territory. Harry wasn't getting nearly as much, unpredictable and preverbal, which he thought might be good. The more you put into words, the less you were stuffing away in the strange holding chamber of the telepathic wolf brain. Things weren't meant to stick there.

“Can we talk about how your wolf is so cool,” Harry said. “I’ve never seen so many colors together, so much brown and black and silver. And you’re fast! Usually nobody can even keep up with me, but I was having a hard time keeping up with _you_.”

Louis looked incredibly pleased. “First time I ever saw myself like that, actually, in your mind I guess,” he said. It was a weird thing to put into words, Harry knew. The intimacy of telepathy with a relative stranger was clearly as much a mindfuck for Louis as any other part of learning about their world.

“Last night felt so, felt different,” Louis said. _Better,_ he didn’t say, _magic,_ he didn’t say, _so happy,_ he didn’t say. But Harry still heard the words. Harry couldn’t figure out if mental espionage made this entire desperate crush-on-a-stranger situation better or worse.

“Well, yeah, it would,” Harry said. Louis needed them terribly. Harry couldn't even imagine how much Louis’ wolf had needed to feel like it was on a pack territory again, needed the forest and the belonging. He didn’t think Louis had any idea, but the wolf always knows.

“Your wolf has a nice ruff,” Harry said, which was a true fact, and easier to summarize than the complex bundle of feelings he was having about packs and strangers and how Louis should probably know that Harry was starting to act terribly bonded without Louis even knowing what a pack bond was at all. Gemma would have things to say. Everybody would have things to say. Harry focused very hard on the _surface_ details of Louis, instead.  

“Sorry, couldn’t help but notice. It’s like your hair, so much of it.”

“Ah, hm,” Louis mumbled. He touched the loose strands over his temple self-consciously, pushed hair behind his ears, and then he dropped his hand, realizing what he was doing. Harry wanted extremely much to run his fingers through that hair, to pull it, to feel his way through Louis’ reactions into the goldilocks zone of hair-pulling, where it would be just a hint of painful and a lot of want and intimate, his nails against the close, silky strands trailing down the nape of Louis’ neck.

“Shower?” Louis prompted.

“Shall I show you how to do it?” Harry asked.

“I’m pretty sure I still know how showers work,” Louis said with a short laugh, barked out in surprise. Then he pressed his lips together, eyebrows raised, a not-smile smile that seemed like it was asking Harry to pull more out of him.

“It’s old fashioned,” Harry said stupidly, because Louis made him feel stupid, “Sometimes you have to jiggle it.”

“Oh,” Louis said, tone light and high and gently mocking, hand floating in the air. “ _‘Sometimes you have to jiggle it,_ ’ wow, you have your very own gigantic wooden nature palace and you’re all bothered about a sticky knob, aren’t you?”

Harry spread his hands wide in faux defense.

“It’s not that gigantic,” he said, “We take up a lot of room, you should see all the space Liam needs to lift weights.”

“This one room is bigger than the entire place I lived last year, counting the kitchen,” Louis said. More careless fragments of his life, scattering around them like the snowflakes. Harry wanted to know so much more. Louis was bouncing unconsciously on the balls of his feet, still with that quarter-smile.

“I thought maybe you’d all be so granola and hippie, you were going to show me to an outhouse, throw me in a lake, tell me to doggy-paddle.”

“It’s not a cult, Zayn promised. I’m a really good swimmer,” Harry said. “I could teach you way more than doggy paddle. One summer Liam went through a whole, ‘wolves should get closer to their roots’ phase and we camped out by the lake for like, two weeks. That was when I realized how much I missed watching tv, and music, and that I was never gonna be survivorman. But I’m still a pretty good swimmer.”

“I’d expect nothing less from someone who grew up on this hippie colony, which is clearly a cult,” Louis said.

“First we’ll get you through the ritual baptism, then the howling at the moon, then comes the drum circle,” Harry said. Louis’ face slipped into a full smile like an accident. Felt like winning something.

He was standing close to the bathroom door, Liam’s old too-big waffle shirt slipping around his neck, feet still bare. Harry could so easily push him right back into the bathroom. He could skate his hands down Louis’ side, pull the loose shirt off him, unbutton his worn, ratty jeans, throw the hot water on over both of them. He could surprise him, disarm him, stumble them backwards and show him that they could entangle their bodies as easily as their minds. Louis would give. Louis _ached_ for it, for touch, angled his body toward Harry even while he stopped every impulse at the boundary between thought and action. But Harry could feel the traitorous impulse, yearning beneath the surface of his mind. In the hot comforting water Louis’ skin would go pink, and then red, would glow. Harry wanted to see every permutation of that beautiful, too-pale skin, flushing under heat and care and every piece of attention that Harry could lavish on it.

Harry sent a grateful prayer to the moon that Louis was the only wolf in the inn capable of telepathing in human form. Louis’ eyes were locked on him, his suspicious mouth loosened, parted.

“I brought clothes,” Zayn said, coming into the room with a handful of grey and black fabric. Harry jumped. He didn’t think it was noticeable. Very.

“Figured you’d be about me in the chest, but stole Niall’s jeans. You’ll have to roll them up, maybe.”

Louis’ whole body had changed at the interruption. He was all tension again. Ugh, it sent pricks of irritation down Harry’s spine, watching him snap back and forth like a ping pong ball.

“I have clothes,” Louis said.

“Hardly,” Zayn said, shoving the clothes forward, into Louis’ face. Harry knew that Zayn didn’t mean to sound sneering, that he did it by accident, but Louis didn’t.

“I have stuff,” Louis snarled. He pushed at the pile of clothes. Harry felt the whirling warm air, and thought, _shit._

Zayn was a ripple of black fur and baleful eyes and then he’d gone fully into wolf, right in front of them, teeth baring.

Louis straight-up flung himself into the bathroom, slammed the door shut, and locked it.

Well, it had been bound to happen at some point. Lone wolves, unbonded to the pack, made confrontational instincts run up on a hair trigger. And Zayn was always like this after a full moon anyway. Wolves were _dumb,_ sometimes.

“Zayn Malik,” Harry said between gritted teeth, “If you could not be a total bushtail--”

Zayn growled, just a front-throat, irritated growl, like he was saying it was an accident, but that he was also persecuted.

“Fuck,” Harry said, “Fuck you, Zayn.”

Zayn whined. His claws clicked on the floor.

“It’s so incredibly rude to do that to a stranger, I hope you get _fleas,”_ Harry said.

Zayn rippled back, thigh muscles quivering thicker, ropey back muscles losing fur, the not-quite-there of transformation.

“I hate you,” Harry said.

Zayn sighed, loudly, and plucked his sweatpants off the floor where they’d tangled up in his feet to sit more securely on his narrow hipbones. He pushed himself off the carpet in an impressively smooth forearm pushup.

“Keep your shirt on,” Zayn said.

“Ha!” Harry exclaimed, “Quite a stone thrown from a glass house for someone who literally just tore their own shirt off to growl _._ What are you doing?”

Zayn ignored him, and rapped on the bathroom door with his knuckles.

“Hey, feral,” he yelled into the wood.

“ _Z,”_ Harry hissed, and Zayn continued ignoring him.

“I’m sorry. Wanna come out and bite me?”

There was a creak in the wood on the other side of the door, where Louis must be standing and listening. He still felt scared. Harry hated it. He felt impressively resolute, though, someone who was good at being scared.

“Is that what wolves do?” Louis asked, through the door, suspiciously.

“No,” Zayn said, cracking up. Asshole. “But you wanted to for a second, didn’t you?”

The door cracked open and a sliver of Louis’ face looked through, pinched and pissed, or maybe mostly embarrassed. Harry suspected those two things were conflated for Louis.  

“I love the wolf just as much as you do,” Zayn said, “So you understand. It’s always hard for me to keep it quiet, after the moon. I’m sorry for changing, I didn’t mean to, it just takes a few days to calm down.”

Louis didn’t say anything. Zayn rested his cheek against his hand, his elbow on the bathroom door. It was strangely vulnerable. If Louis opened the door wider, he’d fall.

“Hey,” he said, “We both feel it. The wolf’s a good escape. Too good, sometimes. We’re not like charmed competents, like Harry here, throwing it on and off like it’s a coat because he’s all packborn, the fucker. We should be friends.”

“I hate the--the _wolf_ ,” Louis said, his voice defiant but with a tiny wobble at the end that went straight for Harry’s heart, and he made a move to step forward, but Zayn shot him a quelling glare.

“Ok, I’m sure you do,” Zayn said, straightening. “Wanna come out and not bite me, but like, skateboard in the basement a bit?”

The basement was a moonsend in the winter. They’d fitted it with ambient lighting and games, and it had a long track of cement floor that you could roll around on, even when there was a raging snowstorm outside. Zayn had even bullied Liam into building him some wooden ramps.

Louis was silent for another minute.

“It’s what wolves and people who hate wolves would do,” Zayn said encouragingly.

“Fine, ok,” Louis said, coming out. Harry was going to have to do something about those heavy bags under his eyes. Zayn was batting a _Go. Away._ arm at Harry, so Harry reluctantly shuffled back down the hall.

“What does packborn mean?” Harry heard Louis ask as he drifted away with Zayn. Harry heroically fought down the urge to whip around and make sure that Zayn didn't say anything weird, anything derogatory, in his dagger-sharp sarcasm that Louis hadn’t been around long enough to automatically translate. Not like Harry didn't _know_ he was lucky.

 

***

 

Despite every advantage in familiarity with land, long limb, and snow experience, Harry lost snowball fights. Or wars, more properly, because if there was one thing that Liam and Zayn and Niall all united behind, it was treating snowball fights with the kind of deadly intensity that _Harry_ only reserved for music and having a great time at parties and getting cute boys to pay attention to him.

Harry was hiding behind a large pine tree, soaked through the back of his grey coat. The deadly game of snowball war was somewhat like capture the flag, the flag being a valiant orange traffic cone that Zayn had stolen from town once, perched on a snow tower in the middle of the back lawn. Harry wasn’t going anywhere near no man’s land, safe behind his tree.

“You’re a coward!” Liam yelled, snowball war being the only event that transformed him into an insult-wielder.

“I’m trying to not die of hypothermia,” Harry yelled back.

“Here, have a blanket,” Louis said, from the air above Harry’s head.

Harry had just enough time to look up in surprise before his face and shoulders were splattered with ice and snow, so much that it knocked him back off his slippery boots, onto his ass in the drift.

Louis, who had climbed up the tree on the other side to get over Harry’s head, carrying snowballs in the hood of Niall’s coat, doubled over in great shrieks of laughter, clinging to a branch.

“Oh my god,” Harry said hoarsely, through ice and twigs. It was dripping down his neck and into his ears. A massacre. Louis lobbed another snowball, beautifully curving right to the back of Harry’s coat, where it caught in the hood and went down his back _._

“You seemed so innocent, but this whole time you've secretly been a snow goblin demon,” Harry whined.

“Oh no, it’s true, not just a psycho wolf but a demon,” Louis said, barely able to catch his breath through laughter. Harry thought there might even be tears in the corners of his eyes. He’d thought that Louis would still be shy and anxious and standoffish out here, but in fact he was a gleeful, awful prankster with an unerring instinct for trouble. Harry had never been so cold and wet and happy at the same time.

“But...did you have an escape plan?” Harry asked, taking a running jump at the tree and easily catching a high branch, pulling himself up. He’d been climbing these pines since he was under two feet tall.

Louis yelped, backed himself into the tree, but he hadn’t thought this through. Harry was up at the level of his branch in a second. Grey, stiff branches pinned them in, sticky-cold sap thick on crusted tree limbs, the smell of pine needles and their faint sweat from running about the yard. Harry leaned in, crushing Louis into the small space, scrabbling for a hold on the flaking bark. He was easily broader than Louis, blocking every exit down the ladders of branches he knew like the back of his hand. Harry put his mouth to Louis’ ear.

“I brought you a present,” Harry whispered. He pulled a handful of snow out from his coat pocket and smashed it into Louis’ collar, pushing it under Niall’s scarf.  

“Fuck, you,” Louis gasped, between laughing and the sudden shock of melting, freezing water washing down his chest.  

“Dead people shouldn’t be able to assassinate the living,” Louis said.

“Fair enough, you absolutely won that, I’m down for the count,” Harry said, scooting onto the branch to face Louis, ankles wrapped together underneath it to hold him in place. Louis had his head against the thick tree trunk, looking up at him.

“Not bad for the first time fighting in the snowball wars,” Louis said.

“Really?” Harry asked. Louis nodded.

“Never done anything like this,” Louis said. His chest was still heaving a little, from laughing so hard, cheeks in a pull of joy that made Harry’s pulse flutter. Harry’s hand on the branch in front of them looked big enough to entirely cover the top of his thigh.

Normally Harry would go in, in a moment like this. He could see it in his head: he’d lean forward, close the inches between them, catch Louis’ mouth or maybe the corner of his upper lip. Louis would let him. Louis couldn’t keep his eyes from drifting over Harry’s face, a question Harry wanted to answer. They'd kiss cold and then warm, melting snowflakes between layers of coats and skin, the slip of Louis’ lips against his, maybe Harry would growl, gently, deep in his throat the way that he knew boys like Louis liked, boys who never quite believed how much you wanted them. Louis’ thick hair pushed back against the tree trunk, tangled in sap, grit under their fingernails, finding Louis’ tongue hot and sweet, like buried treasure in the freezing wind.

He wanted it so much. Wanted to drive the color from Louis’ cheeks down his open collar and watch his surprised pleasure gasp into a mist around them.  

He didn't. The thing was that it was precious, just like this. It was precious just to see Louis’ crinkle-shut eyes squeezed into crescents of laughter, his head tilting trustingly toward Harry, plotting and mischievous, fingers soaked in the first snowballs he'd ever made. It was enough, Louis just able to be Louis, for now.

“Red alert, Liam and Zayn have the cone, apparently the only time they’re not fighting, they’re kicking our asses,” Niall yelled, directly underneath them on the ground, startling Harry and ruining the moment.

“Get your butts in gear!”

“Packs, so demanding,” Louis said, low to Harry, something catching at the end of his words.

“You don’t even know,” Harry said, “But you’ll see.”

“I took care of Harry, man down,” Louis yelled down, eyes glinting. Inasmuch as there were any rules in the mad world of snowball war, the rules were that you were out once your entire undershirt was soaked through.

“I thought Harry was on our team!” Niall said.

“My mistake,” Louis said, “I’m new and confused.”

He smirked at Harry, grabbed hold of the branch above his head, and slammed his borrowed boots hard, onto the lower branch. A sheet of snow slithered off the outside of the tree, straight onto Niall. He fell back into the drift shrieking curses.

“You’re an evil prodigy,” Harry said, head over heels in love, all over again.

 

***

 

They were piling into the mudroom, shouting and chaotic in the aftermath of snowball war, when Harry felt the flicker in Louis’ telepathy and whirled around.

Louis had fallen back, gripping the door frame and wincing, legs slipping out from under him. Harry was there before he even thought about it, catching him by the plush-synthetic folds of his coat. 

“Hey,” Harry breathed.

 _You are not going to throw up, not on the hot one,_ Louis was thinking, rather ferociously. Harry got a grip on his torso, fingers digging into the layers, bracing them easily into the doorframe.

“I wouldn’t mind. Liam?” he called, but Liam was already there, hand on Louis’ neck, gently probing.

“Sorry, I’m,” Louis said, and Harry shushed him. He felt awful, clear as a throbbing bruise in his mind, and he wasn’t going to admit that at all.

“He’s really cold, fast pulse,” Liam said. Not great; Harry lived in tank tops and boxers nine months of the year not just because he hated clothes and loved his own body enough to think that other people should get to benefit from its visual appeal, but also because wolves weren’t usually cold at all. 

“You were sick last night, yeah?” Liam asked.

“Maybe,” Louis said, looking woefully shifty, fooling no one. He was pushing Harry away now, feet back under him. Harry didn’t really let him go, just slid his hands down Louis’ arms to the elbows and kept them there, and Louis glared at him. Harry smiled back.

“Moonsick,” Harry said, “I guess. I mean, right? He was exhausted.” 

“It’s been a long time since breakfast,” Niall pointed out. He’d only had a shitty night’s sleep and one meal, Harry should’ve been paying closer attention. Harry kicked himself, mentally.

“Ok, I’m fine, sorry, what’s moonsick?” Louis said.

“He's fine,” Liam said reassuringly, to Harry _,_ who was apparently entirely transparent. “It makes complete sense, blood pressure maybe, he’s just like, not used to being around pack and all.” 

“He’s right here,” Louis said, under his breath. His snark did more to reassure Harry than anything.

“Is _he_ shifting?” Zayn asked, crowding up on Liam’s left and grabbing Louis’ hand to stare at his fingertips, like they were going to sharpen into points. Louis snatched it away, accidentally whacking his own hand back into the wall.  

“Stop it,” Harry snapped at Zayn.

“Sorry, forgot you’re the only one who gets to manhandle him,” Zayn said, slouching against the other wall. There was a very interesting twitch in Louis’ telepathy, but only momentary, settling back into confusion.

“Moonsick is just, it means you haven’t shifted with other wolves around in a long time,” Harry said in a low voice to Louis, “It’s like you’re hungover.”

“What do you prescribe, Li?” Niall asked. Liam nudged Harry away with his foot, unzipped Louis’ coat, clinically careful, eased it off his shoulders and threw it heedlessly onto the sopping wet floor. The mudroom was always a disaster on snowdays, anyway. Louis looked better instantly, unbundled and breathing freer. He was wet through all the borrowed layers, and he would’ve been shaking, if he hadn’t had an iron-grip on his own body that Harry could feel, pounding at the inside of his skull.

“More food, sit by the fire, fewer smacks in the face,” Liam said, sounding very older brother. “Not that we aren’t grateful for your sacrifices on behalf of the snow nations." 

“A warrior,” Niall said, approvingly.

“Thank you, I do feel that I’ve uncovered my true calling as an ice soldier,” Louis said, jokes layered on top of no matter what else happened to him. Harry just wanted to pull him into his chest, cuddle him into warmth. He crossed his own arms, gripped his own biceps. 

“But explain, what else are you thinking,” Louis prompted, looking at the frown in Liam’s eyebrows. Harry winced. He was too observant, someone who'd survived for a long time because of it.

“Well, it’s really feeling the pull of the pack bond,” Liam said, sounding reluctant. “I’m guessing that’s what it is. You’ve lived for so long without other wolves around, your wolf’s got to adjust now,”

“Adjust to what?” Louis asked. _What the fuck,_ his thoughts whispered. Harry kept his face calm. He already knew that Louis wasn’t going to love this part.

“Um, typically, people like us have packs, territories,” Liam said, looking at Harry with a face that said, _am I supposed to be the one saying this?_ Harry had no idea.

“But I don’t have one, so what?” Louis probed. He looked at Harry, expectantly, like Harry was his reliable source of truth. Harry felt the weight of Louis’ tentative trust, wisping around him like smoke. _Tell me._

Harry shifted, from one foot and back to the other.

“You know, how you felt last night? Like the woods were familiar? Home?”

Louis nodded, apprehensive. Harry wrinkled his nose at him, unsure how to spell it out.

“I think you came out here in the first place because you were looking for a territory,” he said. “You knew we were here. The longer you’re with us, the more you’ll feel that pull. It’s ok,” he added quickly. 

“You mean I’m getting sicker?” Louis asked.

“No,” Harry said softly, “The opposite. You’re getting _better._ Your wolf is deciding its territory, and that’s feeling intense, because you’ve never had the chance before. Your wolf just needs time to feel like it belongs. When people like us find a territory, it becomes home.”

And when you do, you don’t want to leave. You belong to the woods, to these lands. Given enough time, assuming the acceptance of the pack, Louis would belong just as much as Harry did. _Home._ Maybe the first home Louis had ever had. He knew that Louis felt it, even if he hadn’t had the knowledge to interpret it. He knew Louis _needed_ it.

But they were wrong words, although he didn’t know why or how. He just felt it like getting slapped in the face, Louis’ telepathy rife with spikes of adrenaline, even though Louis himself hardly showed any reaction. A quick blink and a slight jerk away from all of them, too subtle for anyone but Harry to feel. When Louis opened his eyes again he looked away from Harry, toward the door.

 _No,_ Louis had thought, with a resonant horror, so loud that Harry expected the others to hear it too, but they didn’t, because it was only Harry who could tell, drawn inexorably into the mysterious plane of Louis’ strongest reactions. _No._

“Food, dry clothes,” Liam said, imperiously, because Liam could be imperious when it was in a domain of his expertise, and people rarely resisted it. 

“And another shower in that huge bathroom, and then a pony,” Louis said. He was standing up better now, pushing away from the wall, and they all spilled back toward the kitchen, coats and boots and dripping layers in their wake. An expression of _whatever_ was put carefully onto Louis’ face, schooled into nonchalance.

“Liam wants to be a doctor,” Zayn said, over Liam’s shoulder, a welcome distraction that may have been intentional.  

“Is that really so?” Louis asked. Liam nodded, looking a funny Liam-mix of proud and embarrassed.

“There aren’t nearly enough wolves who are doctors,” he said.

“Probably because we don’t really get sick,” Niall said.

“Shut up,” Zayn said, “Liam’s brilliant at all that bio stuff.” Harry saw Liam’s face soften. Sometimes he thought that if Zayn could only say half the nice things he said _about_ Liam to other people to Liam himself _,_ they’d all be spared the thunder and bluster between the two of them.

“Yeah, yeah, we heal up good,” Liam said. “But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a lot to learn. I want to go into medical research, you know, and like, be there for the pack, too. There are a few of us who rotate at hospitals down south, could do a residency.”

Louis was looking at Liam with shining eyes now, diverted from the overwhelm by fascination. Harry made a note of it, for future strategy.

“That’s really cool,” Louis said. “A secret wolf doctor, I love that. Can you tell me what happens when we shift?”

“Can I!” Liam beamed. “It’s amazing stuff!”

The chatter was easing the tension in Louis’ mind, making a homey, relaxed space in the crowded mudroom. Liam was pulling Louis into a loose arm-hold and walking back upstairs, Zayn trailing behind, more caring than he ever let on. Liam would ramble about his nerdy stuff and Louis would relax and rest and Harry would get Niall to help him make sandwiches and they’d all hang out in the lounge. And Harry would figure out what to do about the refusal in Louis’ mind, the perfectly mirrored feeling of fear that it left in his own.

 

***

 

“I love him,” Harry sighed, throwing himself into an armchair. 

“Obviously,” Niall said, not looking up from his book, which he’d stolen back from Liam, dammit, now Niall was going to keep it from them all and Harry really wanted to finish, especially because Louis was nearly done with the same book and had the sequel, and maybe they would read it together and over the course of it Louis would look up over the page and realize that Harry was The One and…

Louis was showering, _never taken this many showers in a day,_ he’d said, _clearly part of the ritual baptism plot,_ but he’d looked eager, like a little kid getting a treat, like it was a sauna or something. Harry had come upstairs with sandwiches and interrupted a long, impossible-to-understand conversation between Liam and Louis that was clearly going to go on for a while, all about metabolisms and stem cells and theories that Liam dearly wanted to test behind wolf-brain-telepathy, their various sixth and seventh senses. Louis had been sitting on the bed in the lavender room with his chin resting in his hands, a bundle of captivation. Everything that was normal life for Harry seemed like a miracle to Louis.  

He hadn’t unpacked, Harry noticed, his bag shoved between the bed and the bedside table, partially hidden from view. After sandwiches and all the nerdy lecturing from Liam that Harry could stand, Harry had shepherded Louis straight into his bathroom in the adjoining room. _Please help me use all this,_ Harry had said, gesturing to the forty million fancy bath products that Gemma had given him for the past five Christmases. Harry could not deny it, he was a devotee of the good life via shea butter and organic shampoos. Warranted, he thought; wolves had sensitive noses, Harry maintained that finding the one gorgeously-scented clean shampoo your nose could tolerate cured a multitude of ills.

Louis had made some snarky remark about Harry’s private Lush empire, yet his whole body had twitched towards the soaps, and Harry hoped that he was using at least five different body washes at this moment.

“Hazz,” Liam said, “You’re spazzing out over the cute boy again.”

“Am _not,”_ said Harry, who had missed the last three things Liam had tried to say to him.

“He really is cute. So tiny!” Niall remarked. Christ, had he even turned a page yet? Harry picked a pen with the inn logo on it off a side table and threw it at Niall.

“Harry gets cranky when someone doesn't fall right into his arms,” Niall remarked to Liam, who nodded. Harry scowled at them both.

“Louis is different,” he said with dignity, “Yeah, I love him, hands off, but also. You should've felt his wolf. He's got so much inside.” Harry paused, remembering it. He had to close his eyes for a second, feeling the pointed contradictions of Louis in his mind, free and trapped, sweet and bitter. It was like a maze, calling you deeper.

“Louis seems like he's got a lot going on,” Liam pointed out. “If he really doesn't have a home…that's bigger than us, Hazz. That's bigger than a fling, you know?”

Harry crossed his arms grumpily over his chest. “I'm not being pushy,” he said.

“He's been so alone, it must all be confusing,” Niall said with a worried twist in his forehead, looking up from the book he was never, ever going to finish.

“Imagine not knowing there were others…What would you even think was happening to you? How would the world even make sense?”

Harry shook his head. He'd never felt alone in his life. Wolves had a pack, that was the way of it. The rarest of them, born to half-human pairs like Zayn, were adopted by a nearby territory. And Zayn had been the worst case any of them had seen, only because of the accident, still only without a pack for a few months.

“And besides the fact that every one of us would be in the loonybin after just half a year away from a pack, what's the person-side of him doing?” Harry added. “Alone over the holidays, obviously worried about money, I don't think he has people. Even human people.”

“Exactly. What I'm saying is,” Liam said, “Louis has clearly been through a lot. He seems weird about even hanging out with people, let alone being around a pack.”

“He's been through a lot,” Harry said, “But that doesn't mean he should be left alone even more!”

Liam made a doubtful noise. “Nobody's saying that, Hazz. Only you do tend to be--”

“Popular?” Harry suggested. “Thoughtful? The person most likely to bake you things?”

“A slut. A dog of the night,” Niall said, with great fondness. Liam nodded.

“A heartbreaker. Use 'em and lose 'em,” he said. Harry gasped at them.

“It's like you don't know me at all!” he protested. “I'm incredibly nice!”

“Oh you're nice,” Liam sighed, “You've just got no restraint. You're just so surprised and sorry when people get sick over you.”

Harry flung his head back over the arm of the chair and scowled at the ceiling. This was all egregiously unfair. Fine, maybe Harry was securely-attached enough to have wandered into a fair number of flings and fine, maybe he'd wandered out of them, too. But Harry _lived_ , he didn't see the point in being so cautious you missed out.

“I've never trifled with people,” he said.

“You are the bad boy of the entire northwestern territories,” Niall said, “That's what _you_ told us last week at the bar.”

“The territories have like three packs in them tops,” Harry growled, “'Snot like you all have been giving me a run for my money. Liam shagging that Eastern girl for the last three months and you not having any game.”

“Careful,” Liam said with a doggish lip curl, even though _Zayn_ said a hundred mean things a day about Liam's girlfriend. Harry would never understand their thing.

Niall looked severely at both of them. “This is way more important than pack bickering and Harry's inability to control his limbs around a nice ass, right? Louis needs real support.”

“I'm doing real support,” Harry said, and flushed at how whiny the tone came out. He was though. He just didn't see how he couldn't do real support and also, like, gradually spring a devastating charm trap around Louis, who would undoubtedly be very supported by having Harry's face on his face. Or any other body parts that needed supporting.

 

***

 

Gemma had come back from the village where she’d probably been having important pack conversations about strange lone wolves without families. She blasted in, unsurprised about the wreck in the mudroom, shaking sheets of snow onto the tile floor that Harry was going to have to mop later, in recompense for all of his pack protocol transgressions of the previous night. Everybody had piled into the lounge to exchange presents. Louis, unsurprisingly, hadn't seemed to feel like joining for a holiday he clearly hadn't meant to crash.

Harry found Louis sitting on the same high stool in the kitchen, staring out the window at the swirling snowflakes, eyes glazing towards the trees. Louis, Harry thought, for all Harry had only known him for a day, was someone who picked favorite spots quickly.  

He looked shower-fresh and far better, in a pair of Niall’s pants that he’d had to roll up off his ankles. Harry made a pointed face of suffering at his bare feet, went back to the Christmas chaos of the lounge, grabbed slippers, and came back to the quiet kitchen. Louis shoved them on without argument, and then looked curiously at Harry.

“Isn’t it all, pack Christmas time?” Louis asked. “Some ceremonial pagan cult stuff to handle, I thought.”

“Please, let me hide here with you,” Harry said. “There’s a limit to how many times a guy can chug down an eggnog blood sacrifice, you know?”

Louis laughed again. Harry had made Louis laugh more today than anybody and anything else, not that he was keeping score or anything.

“Right now it’s time for cocoa,” Harry said, taking out the milk and a pot and the good cocoa that he kept in the highest corner of the pantry, where it went unstolen. He found two of his favorites from their vast collection of thick ceramic mugs, and put one in front of Louis. _Be The Person Your Dog Thinks You Are_ ran across the front in a clunky italic script.

Louis picked the mug up and frowned at it.

“It helps if you don’t take it all too seriously,” Harry said, folding the cocoa gently into the milk and stirring. “When I was five, Niall told me I was going to turn into a Labrador retriever. I was actually pretty disappointed.”

“I changed for the first time when I was eight,” Louis said. “Is that typical?”

“Yeah, that’s typical,” Harry said, nodding. “That’s a little young, actually, I was ten.” Better than the tooth fairy and Santa Claus and the entire package of Hot Wheels cars he’d gotten for his birthday, that year.

"Do you remember it?" Harry asked. 

"Do I remember turning into a wolf in the middle of the night at eight years old? And jumping out a two story window trying to find some trees in the middle of Chicago? Yeah, I remember it," Louis said. Biting. 

Harry stared into the pot of hot cocoa like it was going to turn into poison if he didn't watch every single ripple in the warming milk. He felt Louis' drifting regret at having spat that out.  _It's been a day,_ Harry thought back at him, futilely. Louis had no patience with himself in his mind, and it made Harry feel like he was on a train, moving fast, scenery flowing past the windows. 

“No chance this is really an incredibly involved dream?” Louis asked. He’d made a fist and rested his cheek on it. He really had the most unreal cheekbones Harry had ever seen. Something about the small curled fist against the harsh cutting bone was difficult to look away from.

Harry ladled a spoonful into the other mug. Harry’s mug had a picture of four fat pugs with _Squad Goals_ underneath in pink glitter. Louis narrowed his eyes at it, sharp little blue icicles.

“How many times have you asked yourself that before?” Harry asked, “And it’s always stayed real.”

“Werewolves,” Louis whispered, long on the _o,_ the word drawn out and shivery in his mouth. Harry didn’t need Louis’ still-unguarded telepathy to know this was a word he hadn’t let himself say very often. Careful, careful steps here. Harry wasn’t particularly known for being careful. He really didn’t want to fuck this up.

“People who change into bloody wolves. That’s what we are. Like a horror movie.”

“Like a fairy tale,” Harry said. The cocoa was good, but he added a pinch of salt and three pinches of cinnamon, his secret ingredients.

“I just can’t believe that this is real, so many of you, and you're all just like, you seem normal? A whole other world. I mean, I can’t believe it. But it’s so weird, ever since I came here it’s like everything has just been familiar. Like I knew to come here, I came here for a reason.”

Harry nodded. He filled Louis’ mug and put it back down in front of him. Louis wrapped his hands around the mug and leaned forward onto his elbows, nose in the fragrant stream.

“Sorry,” Louis muttered, and Harry had no idea what he was apologizing for. “That’s dumb. But it’s like I knew you were all here, the forest was here, even though I didn’t know.”

Memory from the night before rose in Louis’ and Harry’s mind at the same time, and Harry didn’t know whether it was their connection from running, or just a flash over Louis’ telepathy. Either way it was brilliant and beautiful: arcing branches in the wolf’s eye, the multi-layered feeling of all the birds and small forest animals around them, the bracing air that was so, so clean. _You belong, you know you belong,_ Harry thought.

Harry leaned onto the kitchen table, on his forearms, pressing his palm into his painfully too-hot mug instead of around Louis’ arm again. He didn’t know where it was coming from, this animal-embarrassing notion that Louis’ limbs could just belong to Harry, not that he wanted to push him or control him in space but just that he wanted to contain him, somehow, make a firm sheltering circle around him. _Not something to take care of,_ Louis had thought, clear as day, that morning.

"We are normal," Harry said, "We're us, just normal people, also part of a pack, also turn into wolves sometimes. Often, really, a little bit too often given how much we've been squabbling lately. That's mostly Liam's fault I think." 

“That thing you said about territory,” Louis said, “That it would get stronger?”

“It’s a lot to take in, but you have--you also have, like, instinctual memory about being a wolf, like, things in your body, about our rules, the way we live,” Harry started, watching Louis’ face grow paler. “Please don’t freak out.”

He shot Louis another winning smile. His smile usually got him everything from admittance to clubs he had been too young for in a village where everyone knew his actual birthday, to extra cuddles around the communal campfire, to the books that Niall kept not finishing. With Louis, it only earned him a deeper frown.

“Is this even my brain?” Louis asked. Harry had no idea how to answer the questions Louis had, which were never what he expected.

“Who else’s would it be?” Harry countered playfully, not letting himself think through the implications of that statement. He was going to tell Louis about the whole telepathy thing. Just maybe not now. Harry didn't want Louis to have any extra reasons to feel like he was different from the pack.

Louis tried the cocoa. Then he took a long drink, a smudge of chocolate endearingly caught on his scruffy lip. Progress. Everybody did better with a little warm sugar in them, so if that was mostly what Harry could contribute right now, he'd keep doing that.

“My whole life,” Louis said, and hesitated, and continued.

“My _real_ life has been books, mostly. I don't really have anything else. I got away from the--early shit, some bad situations, and I've been alone ever since. I know the world is a hell of a lot bigger than I've ever seen.”

Louis was looking at him, almost pleading. Harry would bet he didn't half know how expressive his own face was, asking you not to judge him.

“But I've read a lot about it,” Louis said. “I've read a lot about the world. I know I can be quiet but that doesn't mean I don't know things.”

Harry nodded. Louis swallowed. Snowstorm light made a snowglobe feeling, white and cloudy in the kitchen.

“The wolf thing, the monster thing...I was a kid when it first happened and I thought, most of the time, that's not me. Most of the time, I can be like the people in these books. Brave, you know?”

Harry thought about how Louis’ favorite books seemed to be about explorers, astronauts or warriors in another world. He hadn't thought before about how all of those people were always alone.

“I kept waiting for it to stop,” Louis said, “Kept trying to _make_ it stop. I thought I was making it happen, letting it out. I tried to trap it all down in. For a long time, I never even changed at the full moon.”

That was bad--Harry didn’t know the ins and outs like Liam would, but it was bad. Harry felt the corner of his mouth fold inward in an unhappy crunch. He was trying to look neutral, but the wolf inside his chest was plaintive and circling at that thought.

“It doesn’t have to feel like that anymore. Now that we’ve found you, we’re going to help you figure this out,” Harry said.

“What do you mean?” Louis said, back still so tight that Harry longed to wrap an arm around his shoulders and nudge them down from his ears.

“Technically Gemma has to lead a vote, but I’m sure she’ll have you stay with our pack, I’m sure we’ll love to have you, she wants to have a vote tomorrow,” Harry said.

Wolves don’t live _alone._ He looked anxiously at Louis, fearing suddenly that Louis might say, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that he had a pack somewhere, that he was going back to them. Maybe he’d just been gone from them for a very long time. Yeah, and had amnesia. What had _happened?_ How had they missed this beautiful boy?

But Louis just looked back at him, sharp and pained and chin raised like he was waiting for a judgment.

“Everybody keeps saying pack. What the fuck is a pack? I can’t afford more nights in that room, more than tonight,” Louis said at last.

Harry laughed, more a bark than a laugh, but the moon was to blame for that. Louis had jumped a little where he sat.

“Oh my god no,” Harry said, “The inn is just the business. For the humans. You’re _wolf._ You’re just going to stay.”

He hoped, anyway. Actually, all of it was up in the air, but Louis didn’t seem like he needed anything like doubt from Harry, not with his eyes as big as saucers.  

“I am? Why am I staying?” Louis said, tight and fast and almost a snarl.

 _Shit,_ Harry thought, and _Don’t fuck this up._ It hadn’t even occurred to him that he would have to explain this. It had just seemed so...obvious.

“The longer I stay, the more I’ll feel this...this weirdness, that’s what you said, right?” Louis asked.

Harry was forced to consider the possibility that he had underestimated this situation.

“It’s what wolves do,” Harry said, spreading his hands out a little, palms down, feeling a little helpless. “We live like this. That’s why we’re all together out here on the edge of the wilderness. It’s a beautiful village, it’s a great pack, you’ll see. Louis, you’re a wolf, too, it’s what you do, too. You don’t have to worry, as soon as the storm is over, you’ll get to meet the pack and really get welcomed and...you can stay,” he finished, repeating himself.   

“You don’t know who I am,” Louis said, and that was _wrong._ Harry knew it was wrong because Louis was telling him, all the time, who he was, through this secret channel in his brain. Harry could feel the doubt, like sleeting rain turning into ice. He scrambled around for a hold, words slipping out of him.

“Louis, you really--you really need a territory. I know this is a lot. There’s a whole lot of stuff about being a wolf, and you’ve never had anybody around to talk about it with. You can take it a little at a time.”

Louis put both palms up to his face and rubbed his eyes.

“I don’t understand...any of this,” he said, quietly, into his hands.

“I know,” Harry said, his heart aching, even though he didn’t, not really.

“Harry,” Louis said, looking not at him but at the cocoa. He sounded awkward and teenager, for all that he was probably older than Harry, and Harry wanted to pull him in for yet another hug, but Harry held it back.

“You're really nice. You're a really nice guy. But I can feel you worrying, like, about me. You shouldn't. Being alone is what I'm good at, that's what I'm trying to say.”

“You don't have to be,” Harry said. And he knew it was a bad call because Louis’ chin was up, his jaw clenched.

“It's what I know how to do,” Louis said. Harry got a jittering, unpleasant reflection from Louis’ telepathy, all of them with strange faces, like the people Harry thought of as family wearing masks. Telling him what to think, what to believe. Harry didn’t know how to change Louis’ mind, short of shoving into the telepathic plane with his own perception, and that was just wrong, more wrong than eavesdropping, a kind of violation that Harry probably wasn’t even capable of, really. 

“Blood sacrifice eggnog’s not gonna drink itself,” Louis said, quietly dismissing, looking back out the window at the storm, winding down now into its last whirls. Harry deserved it. 

“Just come back out to the lounge when you hear the drum circle, yeah?” Harry said. Louis didn’t say yes, but he smiled faintly, and he drank more of the cocoa.

 

***

 

Harry went back to the lounge to open presents, because it was Christmas. He felt dissociated, pulled across two minds. He brushed it off as believable fatigue when Gemma pressed her lips in and gave him an x-ray up and down stare. They'd always been able to have excellent nonverbal conversations, but the Louis thing was putting even sibling intuition to shame.

“Hey,” Zayn said, coming down hard next to Harry, on the corner of the carpet, removed from the noise of Niall rejoicing in the strudel that Gemma had brought back from Martha’s and Gemma and Liam’s rather loud game of Duel.

“Hey,” Harry said.

“Even magically impossible, secret telepathy won’t get someone to see the world the same way you see it, in one day,” Zayn said. Harry handed Zayn the half-finished mug of eggnog that Niall had foisted on him, still full of hot cocoa. Harry wanted to shift and run around in the storm, burn out all the sugar and anxiety.

“It's going the wrong direction, anyway. I'd give him my head if I could, but I don't know how. I just know _him_. He needs a home,” Harry said.

“Maybe,” Zayn said, “Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe we don’t even know what home means, to him. You know you can't let telepathy trick you into thinking you know someone.”

“You’re right, but also, I’m right about this,” Harry said. “I’m never wrong about the people who fit with us. You remember.” 

Zayn nodded, nudged Harry’s knee with his own. Outside the lounge, the world had gotten darker, fields blanketing in familiar darkness, storm over at last. These winter days, the night crept up on you. Harry was going to pull out the extra down comforter from his closet, throw it on Louis’ bed, and it had nothing at all with Harry feeling better when Louis smelled more like home and pack and _Harry._  

“What was it like?” Harry asked, low under the cover of the crackling fire, the Elvis Christmas album playing on its traditional loop. Zayn sighed. 

“I wasn't alone as long as Louis was. But alone, the wolf was like… It's like waking up to find out you're the monster under your own bed.”

Wolves needed other wolves. But wolves needed safety more. An empty forest was better than a forest with a pack you didn't trust; everyone knew that. Harry’s mind felt empty, too, no bright, skipping, frenetic pull of questioning energy tugging at its edge.

Too empty, too quiet. The storm was over, the storm that Louis had been watching. Louis, with that _no_ in his mind, those soaps tucked away in his bag, telling _Harry_ that he didn’t have to worry. Fuck. 

“Gemma,” Harry asked, “Are the trains running? Tonight? How bad was the storm?”

“I think so,” Gemma said. She glanced at Harry, not caught on, and Harry tried to look especially casual, buzzed on eggnog. He’d busted pack protocols five ways to Sunday, might as well go the extra mile. 

“Should be on a weekend schedule as long as it doesn’t ice over, every hour,” she said at last.

It was twenty minutes to the hour. Harry waited thirty seconds, until the loud pack clamor pulled Gemma’s attention away, and then he ran upstairs, taking them two and three at a time.

Harry didn’t even have to push open the lavender room door before he knew. The room was empty and dark, the bed made with tight hospital corners, no trace of Louis. 

But the door between the rooms, the door into Harry’s bedroom, was slightly ajar. Harry went through it. Everything looked the same except there was a paperback book, set in the middle of the bed, still neatly made from when Louis had gotten up that morning. The sequel to the novel they were both reading.

 

***

 

Louis was at the train station, a lone figure on the bench, so still he looked like a statue. His head was bright under the yellow lights, turned lighter under the gleam against a black background.

Harry whipped the truck door loudly when he got out. Louis jumped, even though he must've heard the engine pulling up. Louis didn't get up, though. He sat in the bench with a holding ground face, like Harry was going to walk up and grab him and try to drag him back to the truck.

Harry gathered the things, marched onto the platform and threw his own coat at Louis, who caught it, confusion furrowing his brow.

“It's got a second layer you can take off, makes a lighter coat when it gets warmer,” Harry said, folding a stack of sweaters into the duffle bag he'd stolen from Liam, who was going to be pissed, but Harry could not care less. He hadn’t had time to pack them up, had just thrown everything he could grab into the front seat of Gemma’s truck and slipped out the side door. There were tupperwares of food in the duffle already, a week’s worth of Liam’s gym lunches.

“The bottom one is mostly rice and veggies, it'll last, so eat the top ones first,” Harry said.

“Harry,” Louis said.

“Liam is a fan of complex grains and protein supplements, it’ll be good for you, wolves need more protein, Liam says you haven’t been having enough,” Harry said, glaring at the containers so that he wouldn't look at Louis. They fit on top of the clothes, but he was worried they were going to spill. He’d thought about packing them in the more solid glass containers, but those were heavy, and he didn’t want Louis to carry more weight than he was already going to. If Harry only had better telepathy, if Harry had whatever strange gift Louis had, he could reach out right now, fire-hose his entire life of knowledge into Louis’ mind.

“I don’t know if you even like complex grains, but I figured, food is food. And there’s a first aid kit, too, from the lounge. It’s probably old but like, hopefully it’s still valid.”

“ _Harry,”_ Louis said. He was standing up. His jeans were soaked through the knee, because he’d walked all the way through the snow, alone, after making Harry’s bed, and putting the slippers away in the bin. Harry was aware that his own breathing was sounding shaky.

“When you get back to the city, I wrote down the name of the guy Gemma uses for our regional trades, he might have a lead on a job, or something, he's friendly, you can at least try--it’s not the same, but, even just, being around other wolves once in a while is still really important.”

“Harry,” Louis said a third time, and his voice shook a little. Harry looked up, and this time he was the one who probably looked defiant, a threatening prickle behind his eyes.

“I don't want you to go,” Harry said. Louis looked at him for a long moment. Then he stepped forward, around the bench and into Harry’s space, so close Harry caught his breath, all the tiny forbidden jagged energy of him.

Louis went up on his toes, caught the back of Harry’s neck with one hand, and kissed him.

Louis kissed like his telepathy felt, which was to say that he kissed sharply and intensely, kissed like he thought Harry was about to push him away and Louis was going to try to get as much out of it as he possibly could before that happened. Harry didn’t, _obviously,_ he dropped a tupperware container and it probably landed somewhere and maybe it cracked open on his feet or on the ground or into the duffel bag _who the fuck cared_ because he was catching Louis around his slim waist, fitting his palms around Louis’ lower back and pulling him closer. Louis’ free hand was caught between them in a fist, squeezed up against Harry’s chest.

Among many other better and more elevated thoughts, Harry felt extremely pleased with his own good taste. Kissing Louis was just as splendid as he’d imagined it could be. Always nice to have one’s judgment confirmed. Louis’ mouth had softened into something warmer and more trusting once Harry folded him close into his arms, and Harry wanted very much to know what other forms kissing Louis could take, what secret tricks he could find to unpeel the tentative tightness from Louis’ face, to solidify the hesitating way that he let his bottom lip catch just barely between Harry’s.

They broke apart to breathe, and in Louis’ case, to come back down from his toes with a small thump that did more to plant him in Harry’s heart than any single event hitherto. Harry was done for. There wasn’t even a path back, now.

“Ok,” Louis said.

“Ok, what?” Harry said, hoarse, choked, embarrassing, like he wasn’t a pro at kissing boys, although he was, but not this boy, who had Harry feeling so many different things at once, and all of them new. That kiss was clearly more than _ok_. But Louis wasn’t exactly the most expressive person Harry had ever met. He could work with that. He hadn’t quite let go of Louis, so his arms were outstretched in the chilly night air, and Louis was looking at him with an entirely uninterpretable expression. Confusion, maybe? Of all the moments for Louis to actually have a pretty solid lockdown on his telepathy.

“Ok, I won’t go,” Louis said.

Harry kissed him again. Louis was light, like lifting a handful of soft snow. He tasted like that twilight moment just before the moon rose, even with his mouth mostly closed and his hand fisted, shoulders squared like he was as likely to get a fight as get a kiss. Harry couldn't hold him tight enough. _Stay. Stay. Stay._

“Yet. I won't go yet. This doesn’t mean I’ve committed to anything, cult-wise, territory feelings, all that,” Louis said, a little breathless. Louis’ voice should always be half-kissed out of him.

“Not at all, no commitment,” Harry agreed, lying like the fucking champion that he was. Harry hooked his fingers around the edge of Louis’ palm and kissed the top of his head.

“I'm…” Louis started, deep as the woods in his eyes.

Harry waited. Louis’ breath was a small tingle of mist, then gone. His eyes glanced off in the direction of the nature preserve. Books and pine needles and running with the moon and collapsing into Harry's bed after. Harry was going to convince him that this was all that he needed. Harry just needed _time._

“I'm cold,” Louis finished, far too long after he started for that to have actually been it. “I'm not like, joining the cult, just take me back for tonight.”

“Absolutely, fully independent, the most nonaffiliated wolf in the world, a self-governed nation state of Louis, only with potential for trade with neighboring cults,” Harry said, taking his hand back and wrapping it over his own arm, which pulled Louis closer into his side. He scooped up the bag on his other arm and started walking them towards the truck.

“You are so weird,” Louis informed him.

“You don't even know,” Harry said.


End file.
